That’s the Finance Minister’s description of some Kiwi workers he made to a Federated Farmers meeting — and he’s standing by it.

Under questioning from Labour’s Iain Lees-Galloway in the House today, Bill English admitted telling the meeting there’s “a cohort of Kiwis who now can’t get a licence because they can’t read and write properly and don’t look to be employable — y’know, basically young males”.

Mr English said he stood by his comments, calling it a “realistic description” of the problem facing the country’s workforce.

um no, I am sure Labour is not out to shut highly successful schools that are delivering results.

charter schools on the other hand, an experiment from the US which has, at best, stuff all evidence of structural success, a multi million experiment based on not much evidence at all. Sure, why waste tax payers money on experiments driven by ideology of the right. Put those millions into successful schools which are making a difference.

Love all the above comments. Of course, this shocking situation, where we do actually have adults who have fallen through the cavernous cracks in our education system and are now not ‘work-ready’…. well, it is obviously all the fault of the teacher unions, isn’t it? After all, they spend all their energies on protecting incompetent teachers… And opposing performance pay, which would magically cure everything.

But, of course, we all know that you cannot solve a problem by throwing money at it, so let’s trim education spending even further.

The company I work for has an unofficial policy that we will give anyone a shot regardless of their background. Sure you start at the bottom sweeping the site or carting materials but the company is committed to providing training and apprenticeships once you have completed 6 months.
To be honest it’s scarey how ‘damaged’ some kids (17-20 yrs) are through substance abuse etc in the family. Pretty much doomed from the get go and many unemployable unless you have the patience and not to mention the ability to afford said patience and even then the number of them that last more than 1 year in a job is very small for various reasons but often related to mental health issues.
Damned if I know how to fix the problem but I do know alcohol and it’s ease of availability is a major issue with many.

While some people can get top marks in the Cambridge International Examinations…

Seriously, there so called ‘damaged’ kids will never have a chance, they don’t understand anything beyond their primal instincts. It’s a waste of time and money to deal with them anymore, people need to wake up and sort out their own problems or at least, show some initiative in sorting out the problems.

Whilst I agree that some need the tough love treatment, the majority are just without any orientation. The reasons are so varied that it would take hours to list them all. Yes, alcohol and drugs play a role, as it has been for many generations. These days technology can be part of the issue by creating trends and a “cant care” style that reflects via an attitude.
My observation: if there is no strong framework as to what is right or wrong, a commitment that achievement is the preferred option and contribution to society is expected – all wheels fall off.
This is not only an issue in NZ but in many countries.

The Swiss apprenticeship scheme – where students opt in from the age of twelve to appropriate business mentors, has a non-official policy of “three strikes and you’re in” – that is, they acknowledge that some students will not be a good fit for either their first or second placements, so they don’t stress out if it takes three or more for them to find a good fit. By this time, they have been introduced and experienced the expectations and normal practices that ensure a good working environment.

A fundamentally better understanding of people, and vulnerable students than perhaps you possess.

Along with this is the expectation amongst businesses to do their best for their apprentices. Apparently news of exploitation of young people by a business would travel fast through the business community, and that business would suffer consequences for doing so.

I don’t know if the NZ business community has the same social conscience.

and not only is having a successful apprenticeship programme a reason of pride, it also means that those that apply for these three + years of learning are generally speaking motivated to succeed. It goes hand in hand. It also takes time to get a Masters Degree which allows then for training apprentices. Usually apprenticeship completed, several years as a journey man/women and then several years to get a masters degree. So a business that has these “Masters’ or ‘Ausbilder” usually has an excellent reputation not only for quality work but also for quality education.
Also, these businesses will after three years have the pick among their apprentices on whom to take over instead of having to go head hunting on the open market.
And for those that took an apprenticeship but that still want to go to university, – quite common in architecture as an example – the previous training is vital.
And for what its worth, instead of raking up a student loan to learn how to cut hair or wait a table or be a builder they actually earn money – and often if good enough participate in regional/country wide competitions that will further help them in their careers.

But i guess it is just very easy to write off a certain segment of the population full stop.

I have heard a similar account from friends working in the mental health sector. In my book, this situation is a total societal failure. Kids who have been vulnerable from very young need help and support but we seem incapable of providing it. Child support and Mental health services have been progressively underfunded under the last two governments. Ministers in the current government have focussed only on cutting budgets, denying people help they desperately need. They are owned by the alcohol industry. The problems down the track will be horrendous for many of these young people, and very costly for our society. This is that brighter future under John Key !

Very very few people are hopeless. Think about what that word means and what using it says. Calling young people hopeless who have come of age in a world that treats them like expendable serfs and in a world that runs a permanent unemployment rate is hubris of the highest order. To say such a thing to as privileged a group as FF is even worse. Fuck Bill English and the privileged sheep farm he rode in on.

Agreed, problem is many find themselves in hopeless situations especially when they get a little older and realize the hole they are that the current system offers very little in the way of a second chance or a hand up.
It’s imperative society catches these kids before they really find themselves in trouble how you do it is the puzzler.

Yes well he has not heard the disgust on radio talkback, so cover your ears Bill long term tax bludger since 1983, was life just to tough actually working the farm Bill? Maybe you are as useless as those you describe, because often people call out what they themselves are …all that debt Bill you are leaving to our grand kids, shameful and you call disadvantaged young people useless. To justify low wages and bringing in immigrants. Wish your family had never emigrated from Ireland and I am Irish.

He didn’t say kiwi workers were pretty damned hopeless .
He said there were a group of workers who were pretty damned hopeless mainly male youth who had no intention of working who did not turn up for work .
A bit different from your lies .

Bill English is doing all right though feeding at the taxpayers tit scince 1990 and Federated farmers who Bills brother heads up this elitest organization wouldn’t know the first thing about this group in society whose members exploit with long hours and terrible pay and are seen as brainless and not reliable because only dumb people would ever allow themselves to be treated this way but they should be grateful for a job anyway
This is what you get when National behaves with their born to rule attitude
I wonder who is next ?

Was it not national that decided testing was better than teaching. They have been in power for the last 7 years and the failure of the education system is squarely at their feet. Some troll will try to blame labour, the chorus of harpies will start ringing soon.

Blaming young men for the failures of this economic system, wow Bill I would have thought you were not that much of a Muppet, but from a man who can’t even polish his own shoes – I should really not expect much.

I would suspect that a whole bunch of our society simply don’t value society anymore. They aren’t valued. They are just abused (as here). They are left on the scrap heap. Their families are left on the scrap heap. People look down their noses at them. National Party voter types in particular simply blame them. These people don’t care anymore. They don’t have a place in society, so why would they? They have abandoned people like Bill English. They have given up. They don’t give a fuck.

I propose the Southland relocation Act. Find any young NET and give them a property in Southland. Move Southlanders to cramped apartment block where the lift is mostly broken and there’s poor service by transport and no parking. Elegant

Yep. And if the agriculture sector wasn’t the most dangerous in the country. And if they didn’t have to work 60 hours a week for less than the minimum wage. And if they they were treated with an essence of respect. And if they were given thorough training on the job.

I’m sure they would turn up for work too, even somewhere remote and isolated from all their friends and family.

Then I’m sure you wouldn’t get guys like the dude from federated farmers on Te News, gushing about how wonderful the Filipino workers are because they “are hard workers”, which managed to patronise the Filipino workers and insult NZ workers in the same sentence.

I think the issue is that our secondary education system is predominantly aimed at kids heading on to tertiary education.

The ones who don’t fit this particular career path tend to be in a no mans land and just drop out or don’t learn the necessary skills require to be a good employee.

I think this is where charter schools could really help.

Another thing I have noticed with quite a few young guys is that they seem to lack the ability to retain knowledge and have to be shown how to do the same task over and over again.
It’s almost like that part of the brain hasn’t developed.

Young guys making the same mistakes over and over again just does employers heads in.

Even when you tell them if you’re not 100% sure, ask some one, they still do it and fuck it up, maddening.

Luckily I don’t have to deal with that any more, but quite a few people I know still have to.

I could say the same about many (supposed) IT professionals aged 35+.

The point is that there are oxygen thieves in all walks vocational life, of all ages. The nub is (in my experience) that often the younger contractors are more often than not the better option with regard to competency.

“Young guys making the same mistakes over and over again just does employers heads in.
I’m thinking you should be looking at your employment, induction and training processes.

“Even when you tell them if you’re not 100% sure, ask some one, they still do it and fuck it up, maddening.”
Your words and your response makes me think that the work culture is traditional, and not inviting for those who are on the floor to speak up. Note: telling people to speak up is not the same as providing a consistently safe environment for them to do so.

“Luckily I don’t have to deal with that any more, but quite a few people I know still have to.”
… and lucky for those who don’t have to work with someone with such low tolerance and unreasonable expectations.

Not only did I learn trade skills but I came under the wing of a lot of older guys who shared their knowledge and experience on life and how to solve problems and deal with issues.

I was a fairly head strong young man who struggled to listen to others but I still learnt a lot from what those guys told me and as I got older it became a lot clearer about what they were telling me, I just had to experience a bit of what they were saying first,

This is really, really important stuff for young Men and it’s something I think a lot of young guys are missing out on.

Again, agree entirely with you. In too brief a summary, over feminisation of the education system has buried the futures of a lot of young men. And you can see it in the relative fail rates/participation rates of males at both school and university.

I would venture to suggest that the somewhat rough virtues of working men – a practical hands-on approach that prefers trial and error to abstract reasoning, and a culture that encourages physical performance are a good fit for many primary industries, especially with late adolescent men.

It may be also that some health and safety regimes are characterised as being feminised in some circles – an error conflating bureaucratisation with gender. H&S can suffer from the same kinds of dysfunction as the building inspectorate around leaky buildings – excessive meddling without improved results. Bike helmets are a similar thing.

Well you and I had those opportunities back than, but the young do not today, it is dog eat dog and only the very best get ahead. they made jobs up in our day to keep the less employable employed..does English seriously think the world is still like that?

BM did apprenticeship that was government funded so did i BM and you know bm we got trained sent to night school without a cent of debt and our bank books were full of money then the ladder was pulled up and thirty years latter one of those re possible calls nz workers useless hypocrite to the max!

The ones who don’t fit this particular career path tend to be in a no mans land and just drop out or don’t learn the necessary skills require to be a good employee.

Which is why we used to have apprentices, and businesses would be expected to train them. NZ’s businesses decided they couldn’t be arsed training apprentices any more, now they complain that kids these days are no use. What’s actually “pretty damned hopeless” is NZ’s private sector.

There is also a bit of a difference in educating kids for life and training people for a job. They intersect but are not the same.

Strange how some of these ‘no hopers’ turn into pretty good employees in new environments. This suggests to me that employers in NZ simply write some kids off too quickly. I’d also suggest this is because they don’t want to put much effort into developing their staff.

And many aren’t. Big business also argues a profit margin motive for there slack training practices. Go figure.

If small businesses can’t afford to train their staff, they should be voting for a government that will do the training for them and paying tax to fund that training. Not writing a whole group of people off as hopeless and/or dead weights.

Because I read what you write on TS. If I have I have misinterpreted your ‘it’s not personal’ comments re Labour, I admit I’m surprised.

You see a lot of people around your neighbourhood picking Labour either in the polls or on election day these days?

My friends and family are about 50 percent govt/oppo split, I think. Some of the younger ones are for turning left, the older of either persuasion not so much. Although some of the older on the right are slowly being disillusioned.

Don’t shoot the messenger, all I am doing is pointing out the obvious.

It’s also an obvious that if SME owners who will “never ever vote Labour again” will also at some time be voting against their own best interests. Imo this is one those times.

And keep lecturing what small business owners and small contractors should do for their own good; that always goes down well with that crowd.

Let me rephrase (without being riled by the categorising of people as ‘dead weight’)…

If small businesses can’t afford to train their staff, I suggest they consider looking for party policies that ensure a society that nurtures people so they can contribute to that society and consider voting on these policies, if they consider these important to the profitability of their venture. And the profitability of their business is the main consideration in their preferred government.

Additional skill training requires funding, this is often cheaper to do as a collaborative exercise with government. It probably means that if small businesses want well-trained, staff who contribute to the effectiveness and well-being of a small business, that paying tax to ensure this happens is an effective strategy.

SMEs considering potential employees as as hopeless and/or dead weights is problematic in that the pool of potential employees that the employer considers shrinks, as does the customer base – especially if that customer base is in primarily in New Zealand. It seems to me it is far better to work with government, young people and their wider community so that the growth of this future generation who, as far as they are able, wish to reach their potential as responsible citizens and contributors to society, and following that, the economy is achieved. This includes ensuring they have the skills to manage their roles as productive employees.

To enable young people to achieve these goals requires substantial funding. Because employers benefit from this endeavour, SMEs may consider it worthwhile contribute to it through accepting that paying taxes will benefit their business.

– mostly satisfied
– a focus on the present
– a belief that change is worse than maintaining the current order of things (they are conservative after all)
– fear
– bigotry
– exclusion (are excluded or wanting to exclude)
– disillusionment
– aspiration
– thinking things will remain the same (negatively or positively)
– looking for a certain type of party leader
etc.

As for assuming they are stupid, greedy and/or uninformed – I don’t think I assumed anything. However McFlock’s little thought exercise shows these factors cannot be excluded. These voters aren’t for turning but.

I sort of prefer to look at these factors on a continuum or as a matrix, depending on the complexity or number of factors involved in what my friends and family say about why they vote the way they do.

The problems (as I see it) for a political party having limited resources is picking the one or two wins that don’t alienate too many of the existing base; and working out how to change the narrative about topics that are being overlooked or alternatively
are getting too much attention (often with a skewed narrative). Timing is important in this as well.

Obviously Labour have not got that right yet and for the last 8 years National has.

Speak for yourself. I’m not one of those people, I can read and write. He’s completely right, a decent swathe of the NZ populous is functionally retarded and it has more to do with our anti intellectual culture than anything Key or English has done. The sort of culture where people can type “Blingish” or “ShonKey” thinking its the height of wit and not die from embarrassment afterwards.

“not being able to read well enough to get a drivers’ licence”
Talking to someone last night who was working on a project to improve the number of people attaining driver’s licences.

While speaking to him, I had the following thoughts – some of which made it into the conversation.

Licences are an accreditation system, not an exclusive one. There may be many very competent drivers out there who have not got a licence.

The question is: why?
1. Could it be that a young male (without employment or chance of it without a licence) living in a financially stretched household, would not have paying for a licence as an option – or – a priority choice?
2. They might not have access to a car during the working week hours to take the licence. Or, they might have access to a car – but not one with fully paid up registration and a current WOF.

There will be few that are not able to pass the licence if they sat it. That is an assumption that is being stated as fact. Also, if that fact is true – surely that casts disparagement on the education system – not those who came through it unable to read.

Many of the young men my partner works with are the results of an education system and country that has ignored them or labelled them. They are often very loyal to co-workers and the team around them after an extensive training period, and a consistent work environment. And they prove adaptive and more than capable in a highly time-constrained work environment. He really enjoys working with the work team, and the high-staff turnover has reduced considerably since this approach has become the norm.

This dog-whistle by English, is to help form a narrative to now attack another demographic of NZers, and for once, is an honest reflection of who National stands for.

Cross-country surveys also show the quality of management is below average in New Zealand, which lowers productivity gains from new technology.

Yeah, the problem is those bunch of self-righteous arsehole managers that vote National. Too stupid to run a piss up in brewery.

Now, we know that Bill English knew about the research so therefore he’s simply lying. Can’t go round telling the truth to their supporters and have them take personal responsibility so they shift the blame for their stupidity on to the workers.

Then, unemployment was no more than 5000. They then were said to be no-hopers, alcoholics, unemployable. The rest of the work-force had jobs, of course, and there being jobs basically for all, employers hated it, having to accommodate themselves to the idea that workers could just up and leave for another job.

Move on forty years, and now there are 200,000 unemployed. And Bill English is saying that there is now a new group of unemployables.

No.

The other part of the argument is that somehow, as Australia is finding by punishing those unemployed who have stopped seeking work as diligently as the government through its agencies wants. There, there are five unemployed for each job, but still the government wants to blame the unemployed for their woes. If only they looked ceaselessly for work, they’d get a job.

Here, alongside that belief we now have English into the blame game. Not the government’s fault. Must be Labour’s. Must be their own.

The unemployed were created to warp the job market by having a ‘permanent pool of unemployed’ who would drive down wages and keep workers ‘settled’ and docile.

And they are still characterised as no-hopers, druggies, young bums, unskilled, uneducated.

Except there are now 200,000 of them, up from 5000 over forty years.

During that time I was a school teacher. Next they’ll be blaming us for their being unemployed/unemployable.

I recall the late 1980s and early 1990s as the business community started complaining about the benefits being too high and thus people chose to be on the benefit rather than go to work. Of course, if that was actually the case then all the employers had to do was increase the amount they were paying and everyone would have been employed quick smart.

They didn’t do that though. They pushed and National cut benefits, implemented the Employment Contracts Act, attacked unions and wages decreased and we dropped into recession as money flowing into the economy sharply declined. Unemployment jumped considerably. A few people got very rich though so I suppose that National consider it a great success.

The unemployed were created to warp the job market by having a ‘permanent pool of unemployed’ who would drive down wages and keep workers ‘settled’ and docile.

I suppose reciting your times tables will fill the time in while you are following the cows down the track on a dark cold morning for fuck all an hour while your fat arsed boss is still asleep.
The fed farmers want good staff the fuckers should lift their game.

It’s probably also how your brain is wired, and what kind of environmental influences you were exposed to when growing.

I also have a brain that retained rote learning and I’m often grateful for that. But I also know that I had peers who that didn’t work for back then (primary school in the 70s). One size doesn’t fit all.

An apprenticeship, if done correctly, will not only teach you how to use tools, it will also teach the history of tools you use an give you enough understanding to see what tools of the future you might need – and above all it will give you a trade that will earn ones living.

The education system is not letting anyone down, the ones administering the Education system is letting down the children, the teachers, the parents of this country.

Tolley, English, Bennett and all the other puppets of our National Party led government that for the last seven / eight years have done nothing else but constantly belittle others for their misfortune of being not them are letting the children of this country down. By cutting benefits to their parents that need them, by cutting funds to school, by refusing to offer school meals for kids, by pretending that hunger is a good way to get a job until it isn’t.

funny tho, that at sometime in the past NZ was an example of high quality of education, and living. Funny that under national, we have a low standard of living, a low wage economy, and now a low underachieving standard of education. Fuck these guys can’t get anything right.

Little boys in a madras in pakistan are good at rote learning, they can’t read nor write, but can recite the Qur’an as good as you can count to ten in french.

And while rote learning is good for brain exercise and may help lay a base for further learning is does not teach problem solving, creativity, nor does it increase a will to learn or to think on your own.

In fact i would go so far and say that plain rote learning is what is the reasons for a certain number of young ones to leave school in the first place. Not everyone learns the same way.

And by focusing on rote learning, on ticking multiple choice questions instead of the dreaded phrase of my youth…… In your own words explain why……, we make sure that those for whom this sort of learning is not working will fall out of the system. And we offer them no other option. So we have fifteen year olds that are not in school not in training and we wonder when they are ‘hopeless’ when they are twenty three.

So to go back to the double dipper from Dipton, who essentially is just whoring around for more imported cheap labour so that his mates don’t need to increase their wages and maybe do something about workplace safety and regular hours, he has got no one to blame but the national government that he is part of. To blame the ones that are left behind by an education system (that Hekia Parata could not fuck up any more then she has) that his government has championed over almost a decade now (8 years now) is just chutzpah. Really.

It’s not mental rote that’s particularly effective or useful – but physical rote – the automation of physical skills through working practice. This is what distinguishes the craftsman from the apprentice, and schoolrooms can’t really provide it very well.

The literature, btw, suggests that you retain more like 30-40% of new material, and your ability to refresh it depends on delayed re-exposure.

I teach you a complex word in Chinese, 20 repetitions in one day. Unless you use or encounter that word it will be lost within 3-6 months. But five repetitions on day one, three on day two, three in a week, three in two weeks, three a month later, three two months later – and all things being equal you’ll remember it for 1-2 years without further exposure. The real secret of this is to teach people things that they will use. If you use it, use consolidates the initial teaching.

“The real secret of this is to teach people things that they will use. If you use it, use consolidates the initial teaching.”

Which is probably why I hated things like calculus so much. I remember endless arguments with my teachers about how pointless it is to learn things which you will never use in the real world. (myself i mean…I’m sure there are a few people who actually use simultaneous equations and the like in their jobs???)

Yup – killed it for me too – I could do it easily enough – this is why you need teachers expert enough to know what calculus is for in the real world, so that they can realise examples and produce capable rather than passivised students.

Actually being able to recite the times tables is essential for progression in mathematics. Take a simple but essential aspect of mathematics – factorisation and quadratic equations. If you don’t know what the factors of a number are – you are stuffed. From there – if you can’t progress past factorisation the rest of mathematics will remain a closed book.

When two numbers multiply together to give a third the first two are said to be factors of the third. Factoisation is merely taking a number and finding two numbers that multiply together to give the number you start with.
eg 72
has factors 9 and 8, or 12 and 6, or 16 and 4, or 24 and 3, or 72 and 1.

Prime numbers have only 2 factors – themselves and 1 – and are pretty important for codes, particularly public key crytography where large primes may be used. You use them every time you use a PIN.

or you could go back to first principles and the derivations of the words.
For instance:
In a circle of unit radius the tangent of an angle is the length of the Intersection of the extended line describing the angle from the horizontal axis with the tangent to the circle. This shows that the tangent of 0 degrees will be 0, of 45 degrees will be 1, and then increases rapidly as the angle increases towards 90 degrees where it approaches infinity and ceases to exist at 90 because the two lines are now parallel.
Sine and Cosine are similarly defined (sine sideways direction of the chord, cosine distance to the chord from the origin).
eg Cos 0 = 1 Cos 90 = 0
and sin 0 = 0 sin 90 = 1

I preferred to introduce the topic as a graphic and have the students draw and measure and derive these relationships for themselves. initially producing their own trig tables. and their own graphs of each relationship.
From there the solution of triangles was straight forward, and was seeing that each triangle was a similar triangle to the unit triangle they had created. were they given the cosine side or the tangent or the sine side? Having the ratio it was now a simple matter of multiplication.

Almost definitely not. And his pronunciation of 1 – 10 would probably flummox real French speakers. But I bet that in a classroom full of 40 students he easily learnt good literacy and numeracy, in an era when students were forced to rote-learn what really matters.

Amusingly, people like BM imagine that they have an educational advantage over younger people. Or have I misunderstood you BM?

I beg to differ…even with the available tech the ability to question a result is imperative …far too many now have no concept of what is possible(or even likely) and accept an answer from that tech….even if the question was incorrectly formed…this is particularly true of mathematics

or they need to form an inherent understanding of a subject so as to be able to vet as they proceed….far more economic….and doesn’t require voltage
The problem with checking is it doesn’t happen unless you realise you have to…and how do you determine that?

Personally, in NZ I have more often seen appalling management, than appalling workers (although there are some of those too). The damage caused to an organisation by appalling management is usually far greater.

Yes, but where are the top managers? In Asia, good managers wouldn’t dream of letting their staff screw up. They really do work harder than everyone else, and though they are very well paid they’ll never get crazy corrupt US CEO pay rates. NZ top managers are following the wrong models – corrupt Chicago schoolers – not even good managers, just greedy.

That’s the Finance Minister’s description of some Kiwi workers he made to a Federated Farmers meeting — and he’s standing by it.

Two things:
1. He was talking to the guys who’ve turned NZ’s waterways to trickles of shit. Wasn’t there a more important message he could have chosen to offer?

2. Waster yoofs are annoying, but in terms of “pretty damned hopeless” people who are a drag on the economy, we have a far worse problem with NZ’s incompetent managers and corporate leaders. If anyone needs a stiff regime of education and training, it’s them. Maybe he could open a charter school for incompetent middle managers and private-sector business leaders?

I think NZ has changed. Two things have happened in our lifetime; lots us who grew up here have moved away. And lots who didn’t have moved in.

But more problematic is that the world I think overwhelms us. At one time the world that mattered to us was Aus, UK, USA and maybe Europe. We understood these places and they understood us. Well just enough to matter.

Nowadays … well I was watching a Joanna Lumley doco doing the train trip from Shanghai to St Petersburg. Somewhere through China she said how eerie it was to be gliding past city after city, all of them larger than London, and none of them you have ever heard of.

We’ve shrunk to nothing in the world, and we feel it. I think we want to retreat a bit now. Once we wanted to ‘punch above our weight’, now we want to avoid doing any punching at all. And this has made us insular and more prone to yielding to our conservative natures.

The parallel with Hobbiton is probably trite, but uncanny at the same time. Part of us wants do nothing leaders like Key, because we don’t want to make ourselves visible. Only a small few have much stomach for adventures at the moment.

Its all about MONEY and nothing else!!! Dirt cheap foreign slave labour that have no rights. These workers who can hardly speak English if at all, are tied to debt before they arrive, as they have to pay agents/contractors in their home countries for these jobs in NZ. That’s why farmers and other businesses prefer dirt cheap foreign slave labour that have no rights, over Kiwis. Its all about the exploitation of workers for profit.

Belittling those with literacy & numeracy skills only makes things worse, those who have these problems have a hard enough time already trying to gain employment, let alone what it will do to peoples self esteem which is probably low enough to begin with.

Unfortunately this is very telling of a huge problem in our society – ageism against the young, and especially young men. And not surprisingly, it’s usually the establishment who complain the loudest (hmmm… you couldn’t be covering for something now, could you establishment?)

It comes out of the mouth of Bill English, it happened when university students protested at cuts in 2012 and the Minister of Education said on national news that ‘they just need to finish uni and start contributing to society’ – as if they’re all there wasting there time, and people like doctors just need to ‘hurry up and finish those pesky medical studies and you know, start doing medicine’. You might as well have a Minister of Finance announce ‘there’s a few economic problems just now, so if everyone could stop using money, that’d be great’. But of course ageism against the young is so deeply rooted in our society that these minister’s don’t get thrown out of their job (ironically, for being so useless at them).

And it happened too for about a decade in the shape of NZs famous drink-driving ads, where every single ad was about young male drivers – despite drink driving convictions clearly showing the problem was across age bands, with plenty of middle-aged drink drivers, and across genders with plenty of female drink driver’s too. But no, easiest just to point at ‘young males are the problem in society’. I’m sick of this crap.

The worse thing is Bill just dismissed it offered no solutions, or called for any, scrap heaped a lot of unemployed guys who already feel bad about themselves anyway and Bill just made sure they felt useless and hopeless..and the worse thing is he does not care. We are all New Zealanders here so get your thinking cap on and figure out how to get the young guys into work. Who talks abut this stuff usually Clayton and Damien but they have been drowned out by self absorbed Tories who tell us what a great country it is to work in, complain about the kids and than say they are useless we won’t be helping the underperforming. Please leave in 2917 Bill, thirty years is long enough anyway. Correction I think it is 40 now, can that really be..you must have really hated the thought of working on the farm to cling to your govt job so long. The Federates keep you there, don’t they Bill, as you work for them and their plans.

The worse thing is Bill just dismissed it offered no solutions, or called for any, scrap heaped a lot of unemployed guys who already feel bad about themselves anyway and Bill just made sure they felt useless and hopeless..and the worse thing is he does not care… This.

I was so angered by English’s remarks last night that I was unable to form a coherent comment on this post. In the linked article, English used the uselessness of local workers to explain a “permissive” policy on immigration – “we” have to import “decent” workers because the one ones we’ve got aren’t good enough, the thought seems to be. Put this together with the rich man’s bolt hole idea and the tax haven idea and you can see how far we have moved under this government from any kind of broad notion of the public good. English’s remarks express the strutting and sneering of a conqueror over a colonised people – haven’t the Irish, the Scots, the Welsh, the Maori, the Pacific Islanders, all in turn been characterised in just the same way?

Did National know that Bill English was going to be ousted for his anti Kiwi worker hate speech?
Because what a coincidence it is then, that as news of pretty damned hopeless Finance Minister Bill English’s derogatory comments comes to light, counter headlines appeared saying “Hire New Zealanders first, govt says”

Somehow young Kiwis have gone from ‘the best in the world’ and being considered model employees for hard work in places like the UK, but now being described by English as “hopeless’.

You have to wonder what has happened during neoliberalism of the last 30 years.

Maybe government and societal changes are NOT working! Maybe double dip English and Key’s off shore tax trusts are not fair and depriving our country of the funds and moral character needed to nurture the next generation.

I personally could not see anybody in the UK government getting away with this. But in NZ, bulling and abuse is now standard government issue. Not just for youth, but anyone who lives in NZ, and believes in social justice.

As an experiment neoliberalism HAS NOT WORKED. Some individuals have become obscenely rich, have their own rules, laws and are now running countries and organisations making more rules to make them more money while depriving the rest of the population of a chance to succeed.

“Somehow young Kiwis have gone from ‘the best in the world’ and being considered model employees for hard work in places like the UK, but now being described by English as “hopeless’.”
______________________

These (“best in the world” and “hopeless”) are two separate, mutually exclusive groups. We have not gone from one to the other as you suggest.

Group A. Nearly all the young people I deal with in employment are brilliant, motivated and interesting. They are highly articulate and mostly have at least one post-graduate qualification by their mid-20s. They are free of substance abuse, have multiple interests. They travel regularly…..These are the employees who will still be valued by any employer internationally.

Group B. At the other end there are young people who are not any of these things. These are the young people Hon. English was referring to.

What has happened over the last 30 years is that the demand for workers with low skills has dried up. So the costs of being in Group B are higher than they were 30 years ago.

The good news is that there are more young people in Group A than Group B.

Because that’s the bottom limit that the seafood industry has been using, and it’s clear that these are the sort of standards you would like to allow in the dairy industry, too – not to mention, Indian restaurants.

Sea Shepherd should buy those two vessels you should have been using to patrol the seas and protect the economy. They do a much better job (even though I know your colleagues work quietly with them, granted…)

I had to characterise them too simply. They are responding to real pressures, which are international problems. But for western liberal economies to remain the competitive I’m afraid they’ll have to get with the dialectic and encourage trade agreements which ensure certain standards for workers, and exert pressure, on, for example, money launders and human traffickers – which the United States is doing quite well, actually – with one hand, anyway – or suffer the consequences of continued austerity and the treatment of labour as just another commodity, which will see riots, surely? Not to be too dualistic or suggest there isn’t another way. What do you really think?

Speaking of people not showing up to work, has Bill English noted how the Parliamentary benches look so empty at times when the House is “sitting? And why were there 2 empty MP’s chairs at the TPP submissions on the second day as recorded by Tim O’Shea? These absentees were not on the minimum wage either, or young but are “pretty damned hopeless” role models IMHO.

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On the 10th anniversary of the infamous “Imma let you finish” episode, Josie Adams reflects on what this moment revealed about both Taylor Swift and Kanye West.Cast your mind back a decade: 2009 DJ Earworm was still good, Barack Obama was sworn in as president of the US, Israeli ground ...

Analysis - An astounding week in politics has left Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern carrying responsibility for sorting out the mess the Labour Party is in over the sexual assault allegation, writes Peter Wilson. ...

Police Minister Stuart Nash has confirmed details of a new bill that will create a registry of guns, and new offences and penalties for illegal manufacture, trafficking or changing markings of firearms. ...

Charli XCX has just released her latest album, Charli. The futuristic musician is always looking ahead, and so are her fans. We’ve paired each star sign with their perfect Charli XCX song.Charli XCX burst onto the scene in 2012, when she co-wrote and performed electro-pop headbanger ‘I Love It’ with ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benedict Sheehy, Associate professor, University of Canberra British health-care conglomerate Bupa runs more nursing homes in Australia than anyone else. We now know its record in meeting basic standards of care is also worse than any other provider. This is more than ...

Fable is best remembered for the disastrous, over-the-top promises made by its designer Peter Molyneux. But maybe, Adam Goodall argues, we’re remembering it all wrong.“There is something I have to say. And I have to say it because I love making games.” So opens an October 2004 post on the ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Senior Research Fellow, Moral philosophy, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Law Futures Centre, Griffith University Argument is everywhere. From the kitchen table to the boardroom to the highest echelons of power, we all use argument to persuade, investigate new ...

The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Native Son: The Writer’s Memoir by Witi Ihimaera (Penguin Random House, $40)Stand by for a review from ...

Tara Ward delved into Māori TV’s impressive OnDemand catalogue and found some of the best TV taonga for your viewing pleasure. From lifestyle shows to documentaries, from current affairs to reality TV, Māori TV has an abundance of quality telly that celebrates and acknowledges the people, places and cultures of ...

A new poem by London-based poet Morgan Bach.Turning, hurtlingI march diligently to sunshine in the parkeverything bathed and turning golden.A woman breathes fire by the folly framing herlike a personal door to hell. Conkers are pitched from high boughsto break and give up fruit, a spire emergent from the baring ...

Simon Day learns about the history and power of Chinese five-spice. Both the origins of Chinese five-spice and the flavour itself are a little mysterious. My internet investigations revealed the powder’s name could be in reference to the use of five spices (although this often grows to six or seven), or ...

Revelations around alleged sexual assault by a Labour staffer and the party inquiry into his behaviour have dominated the week. Alex Casey and Mihi Forbes join Gone By Lunchtime to survey the damage.Alex Casey, author of the Spinoff feature published on Monday, “A Labour volunteer alleged a violent sexual assault ...

In the fourth episode of Actually Interesting, The Spinoff’s monthly podcast exploring the effect AI has on our lives, Russell Brown speaks to Ana Arriola, general manager and partner at Microsoft AI and Research, about ethics and transparency in tech.Subscribe to Actually Interesting via iTunes or listen on the player below.To download this ...

Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Labour Party sexual assault allegations Andrea Vance (Stuff): How to make the Labour abuse scandal ...

Toi Kai Rākau Iti, who is running in the Eastern Bay of Plenty Kohi Māori constituency, encounters an unlikely channel of youth engagement.In te ao Māori you’re always looking for tohu, or symbols. They guide you through uncertain territory and help you make sense of the world. The arrival of ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tomer Ventura, Senior Lecturer, School of Science and Engineering, University of the Sunshine Coast The creation of all-male or all-female groups of animals, known as monosex populations, has become a potentially useful approach in aquaculture and livestock rearing. Researchers and those in ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Holmes, Director, Climate Change Communication Research Hub, Monash University Predictably, both major political parties are resisting calls this week for a parliamentary conscience vote to declare a climate emergency in Australia. The resistance is unsurprising because both the Coalition and Labor ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Shi, Lecturer, Graduate School of Business and Law, RMIT University If the Religious Discrimination Bill passes into law, women may find it harder to get an abortion. That’s because health practitioners with an objection to performing the procedure on religious grounds ...